JAKARTA, Nov 20 (AFP) - The military chief in Indonesia's West Timor
province said Tuesday the government will give the equivalent of 70
dollars to each East Timorese refugee wanting to return to their homeland.

Major General William da Costa said the 750,000 rupiah (70 dollars)
allowance, from the ministry of people's welfare, is expected to help
refugees returning home to East Timor, according to the state Antara news
agency.

"The money can be obtained when the head of the family (of
refugees) register themselves to go back (to East Timor). At the
registration, they will be photographed and it will be used as a document
to avoid double allowance," da Costa said in Kupang, the capital of
West Timor.

He said many East Timorese refugees had insufficient food supplies when
they returned to their homeland and the allowance was expected to cover
that cost for a while.

An estimated quarter of a million East Timorese fled or were forced
into West Timor in the wake of East Timor's overwhelming vote for
independence on August 30, 1999, after 24 years of enforced Indonesian
rule.

Local pro-Jakarta militias, backed by the Indonesian military,
unleashed a wave of killing and destruction in response to the vote.

The cash-strapped government has been trying to persuade more East
Timorese refugees to return to the now UN-administered territory. Some
100,000 refugees still remain holed up in squalid camps in West Timor.

On October 30, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said it
had helped repatriate some 188,646 East Timorese refugees from West Timor
in the past two years.

The UNHCR also confirmed that it will extend its voluntary repatriation
operation supporting the East Timorese refugees until June next year.

International relief agencies including the UNHCR pulled out of West
Timor after three foreign UNHCR staff were murdered by a mob in September
last year.

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